Entropy
by Jolie
Summary: FINALLY FINISHED. Mark's relationships with Roger, Maureen, and April.
1. Chapter 1

I'm back!  And so is Beneath the Surface, only now it's Entropy, and it's been completely revised and finished.  Anyone remember us?  That last chapter just killed me.  I got such a mental block over it, and the only way I could work through it was to re-write the entire story. :)  I should have the whole thing posted in the next week or so, but you should know, promises from me about updates are as good as useless.  Thanks so much to everyone who read and reviewed BTS so faithfully; I hope you like this, though it isn't vastly different.  Comments are as always adored and appreciated! 

And I still don't own any of them, by the way.

***

Entropy 

**en·tro·py**

-The sensation experienced in the body due to heat, such as exposure to fire, the sun's rays, etc.

-Animation, as in discourse; ardor; fervency.

-A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message. 

-A violent action unintermitted; a single effort

-Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society. 

I.

Mark collapsed onto his bed in exhaustion, sighing slowly. He had spent the entire day helping his girlfriend Maureen move into his apartment, hauling boxes and suitcases over six city blocks and up seven flights of stairs.  His roommate Roger had conveniently disappeared well before his usual Saturday morning noon wake-up and had not been seen since.  And for the first time that Mark could remember in quite a while, there was no one else currently living in the loft.  It was generally the home to at least one or two of Mark and Roger's drifting friends or folks in need of a place to sleep for a night or two nights or two months.  Makeshift walls and beds were often constructed in the open, nearly empty common area that made up the majority of the loft.  Only Mark and Roger's bedrooms and one bathroom were separated by doors.  There was a second bathroom in the loft, attached to Roger's bedroom, but they never used it anymore.  Mark's bedroom door was slightly ajar, the sounds of running water from Maureen's shower trickling in to where Mark lay on his bed, surveying the damage.

Frankly, he was amazed at just how much _stuff _she had.  The boxes had been steadily piling up all day long, completely obscuring one wall and drifting into other corners, creeping into the living room and across Mark's mattress.  He didn't have a clue what was even in half of them. Clothes, books, photo albums; different labels were scrawled across the sides of half the boxes in Maureen's messy, loopy handwriting.  She began to sing some eighties pop tune over the sound of the running water and Mark laughed softly, grabbing a pillow to rest his head against.  He turned his attention from all of the Maureeness in his room to the patch of sky he could see through the window, over the top of the building across the street.   

He suddenly missed April.  The realization was unexpected and crushing, forcing the air out of his lungs in a long, hard sigh.  It always came on like this, seemingly out of nowhere.  He felt lonely, and he grasped at mental images of her smile in attempt to find some vestige of comfort in her memory.  He thought of how she used to sneak up behind him and hug him when he least expected it.  Somehow she always knew when he needed that, even if he didn't.  If she were here now, that's what she'd do.  He would be lying here, looking out of the window, when he'd feel her weight plop down on the mattress beside him.  He'd smile slightly just before she wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her chin on his chest and looking up at him searchingly.

"Whatcha thinking Mark?" she would ask.  She never bothered to ask unless she really wanted to know.  "You look upset."

Mark had never been one to articulate his feelings, particularly when he was depressed or angry, but sometimes her clear eyes could draw the confessions out of him almost against his will.  When he was recalcitrant and quiet, however, she would just lay with him for a few minutes before getting up silently to make him a cup of coffee or a bowl of ice cream.    

Mark shook his head, as though that physical movement could push the memories back into his subconscious where they belonged.  Thinking of April was never a constructive, healing process.  Better to avoid it altogether rather than let his mind take that circular path that only became harder and more painful as he progressed down it.  Besides, now wasn't the time to be thinking about the relationship he had lost, or the one he would never truly have.  Not with Maureen singing in the next room, with her clothes in his closet and her life in boxes by the foot of his bed.  April was gone, and he loved Maureen.  He was pretty sure he loved Maureen.  That word had become so confused in his head that he wasn't entirely sure what it meant anymore, but he knew how important Maureen was for him, to him.  She was the only reason he had been able to breathe since complete silence had descended on his loft, the only noise left in his life.  Sometimes he felt her slipping away, dancing right out of his clutching fingertips, and he was deeply scared about it for more reasons than he cared examine.  Maybe thinking about April was some kind of sick reflex, substituting someone he had already lost for someone he feared he was losing.    
  
Mark realized that the sound of running water from Maureen's shower had stopped, and he turned in time to see her slip through the door into his bedroom, clutching a towel around her body, her hair wild and dripping heedlessly, her cheeks flushed from the heat.  She smiled at him, and Mark was sure that she had never looked more beautiful.  She just exuded life, and he felt more awake from just being near her than he had for a long time.  He stood to kiss her cheek.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she returned, her smile a gentle mocking of his shyness.

"Feel better now?  I know how tired and sweaty you must have been after ordering me around all day."

"It's a full day's work," she said, turning to search for her clothes in Mark's closet.  

He laughed softly, laying a hand on her bare, warm shoulder. "I'm going to make some coffee.  You want some?  Roger should be home any time now."

"Sure," she said, her voice impassive. "I'll be just a few minutes."

   
Mark left his bedroom, closing the door softly, and headed for the over-utilized Mr. Coffee in their tiny little kitchen area.  His mind was still wearing tracks around Maureen, as it often did.  He could almost feel her distancing herself from him, from this relationship, more everyday.  But he could be entirely imagining it, taking her freeness and wildness for distance.  Or he could be projecting his own issues onto her.  She was living with him now after all, though he couldn't quite figure out if her certainty about wanting to move in was sincere or bravado.  Maybe he was holding onto something that ultimately just needed to run its course.  She was too reckless and beautiful and irresistible to be held by the attentions of any one person for long; he never really understood why she had chosen to stay with him for this long in the first place.  Maybe she was holding on for the wrong reasons too.  The pathologies of their relationship confused him too much, and he usually abandoned the prospect of trying to work through them, content with the knowledge that he didn't want to face the oppressive silence of this place without her invasive laugh and irrepressible voice.  
  
Mark looked up from the coffee maker in surprise when he heard the apartment door slam behind him.  He turned to see his roommate Roger tossing his leather jacket on a side table in obvious frustration.  
  


"Hey," Mark said quietly.  
  
Roger spun to face his friend in surprise, not having seen him there when he came in.   
  
"Hi Mark," he replied absently, pushing his fingers through his unruly hair as he often did when he was upset.  
  
"What's up?" Mark asked, gesturing for Roger to have a seat.  Roger plopped down on the couch, propping his feet up on a table as Mark brought him a cup of coffee, black except for sugar.     
  
"It's nothing," Roger said as Mark sat down cross-legged beside him, turned so that he faced his friend. "Just the band. I don't know... I get really sick of their shit sometimes."  
  
Mark only nodded as Roger took a long, slow drink of coffee. Roger's band mates were notoriously difficult, and for all his tough exterior, Roger was surprisingly sensitive.  The last year or so had left its mark, though he would never admit it, and he was even more easily roused to anger or depression than he used to be.  Fights with the band had become commonplace.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Mark asked.  
  
"No."  
  


"Okay," Mark replied.  He had been expecting as much, but it never hurt to ask.  More than anything he wanted Roger to talk to him, but he knew better than to assume that he would.  Mark fixed his eyes on Roger's profile as his friend stared down at his calloused musicians fingers, unconsciously clenching and unclenching them in agitation.  His features were strong and defiant, but his smoky green eyes gave him away.  The sensitivity and idealism he tried to hide beneath the tough, unaffected rock-star never quite left those eyes.

  
Maureen stood in the doorway of Mark's bedroom, watching the two of them sit silently together.  'The boys' had a relationship that never failed to puzzle her whenever she happened to think about it.  For two adults, they were almost impossibly close.  Their deep, unashamed dependency on each other was exactly the kind of thing that Maureen had spent her entire life avoiding.  Even at times like this, when there was tension between the two of them, it was impossible to miss.  The way Mark brought Roger his coffee, how they sat and talked, or how they sat silently as they were now, the way that one of them was invariably looking at the other when the other's attention was elsewhere.  Things they probably weren't even aware of.  And it was always the same, like the re-run of a television show the twentieth time you've seen it.

  
"Hi boys," she said, deciding to speak up.  Mark glanced around and smiled at her, standing to give her a small kiss.  Maureen sat in a chair across from Roger as Mark went to make her a cup of coffee.  Roger looked up and greeted her quietly, glancing into her face for a moment before turning his attention back to his hands.  She and Roger were still not entirely at ease with each other, though she made more of an attempt to hide it then he did.  

"There was a message from Collins on our machine today," Mark said as he returned to his spot on the couch, directing the comment more at Roger than his girlfriend. "Apparently he's in D.C.  Some kind of rally or protest going on there this weekend."  
  
"Our little activist," Roger said with a subdued kind of sarcasm. "How's he feeling?" he added, a serious undercurrent to his tired tone.

"Didn't say, but you know Tom.  I'm sure he's fine, but he'd never tell us..."

  
Maureen sat silently as Mark and Roger talked. She always felt like an intruder whenever Roger was around, like she was trespassing. She couldn't participate in their quiet, intuitive kind of communication.  Maureen thrived on words, but they had progressed beyond ordinary speech years ago.  It wasn't until hours later, when they had all said goodnight and she was lying in bed beside Mark, that she felt like she had the right to be there at all.   
  
Long after Maureen's breathing slowed into sleep, Mark lay beside her, his arm curled around her shoulders, listening to the sounds of Roger in the other room.  Roger never went to sleep before early in the morning anymore.  After April died, he didn't so much as leave the loft for nearly two months, most of which he spent in stunned silence.  He didn't even leave to go to the funeral, staying shut firmly behind his locked bedroom door as Mark ironed his only good shirt and left.  It was only in the last few months or so that he began going out again, and he threw himself into the distractions that New York had to offer in a way Mark had never seen before.  He became obsessed with the band and stayed out all hours partying and drinking and God only knows what else.  Most nights he didn't come home until hours after he thought Mark had gone to sleep.  But Mark didn't sleep.  He lay in bed every night, staring up at the peeling ceiling until he heard Roger throw the deadbolt on the front door.  It was only then that he could close his eyes.

Sometimes Roger picked up his guitar after his roommate went to bed, as he had tonight.  But he was struggling.  The notes - which had once come so naturally - tripped awkwardly off of his adept fingers as he tried to pick out a melody that the filmmaker had never heard before.  Roger hadn't written anything new since April died.  
  
_"Mark?"  
  
Mark rolled over and opened his eyes drowsily. April was standing beside his bed, her hair loose around her face and her eyes apologetic. She looked deeply sad and poetic with the light from the lamppost outside framing her sweet face.    
  
"Yeah?" he whispered, though he was fairly certain of what she was going to say. This wasn't an uncommon occurrence.  
  
She bit her lip. "Do you mind if I sleep with you for a little while? Roger and I had a fight, and I don't think he wants me around right now."  
  
He only nodded and lifted the covers for her. She slipped underneath the sheets and curled up beside him.   
  
"Thanks Mark," she said softly as he wrapped his arms around her.  
  
"Mmhm," he murmured, his eyes drifting closed. She ran her fingers softly over his chest in that soothing, unconscious way of hers, her breathing falling into rhythm with his. In truth, he almost looked forward to the nights when they fought, as guilty as it made him feel. One or the other of them invariably came to him for comfort and validation._

_"Tell me about your new film?" she said. He could sense the tears in her voice, just beneath the surface, so he told her in detail about the documentary he had been working on with a small production studio in SoHo.  April always made sure to ask him about things like that, even if it was to distract herself from a fight with Roger._

_    
He explained every shot and camera angle to her, rubbing his hand across her back in what he hoped was a comforting way.  Her breath was warm against his chest as she laughed quietly._

_  
"I'm sorry I keep doing this to you Mark," she said. "You must be positively sleep deprived by now."  
  
"Well, my beauty rest is very important," he murmured, "but not as much as you are."  
  
"You **are** beautiful," she returned, propping herself up on her elbows to kiss him softly, the moment lingering between them. _

_They both paused as they heard the sound of Roger's guitar drifting in from the other room.   
  
"He's upset," Mark said.  
  
She sighed. "I guess I should go talk to him. Thanks Mark, I don't know what I would do --" _  
  
Mark was jarred back to the present by the sound of Roger throwing his guitar violently into its case.  Something inside of his friend was slowly strangling him, Mark could see it and feel it and hear it.  And there was nothing he could do, he knew that.  But that didn't stop him from carefully disentangling himself from Maureen's arms and walking into the living room to talk to the musician.  Roger was fully dressed, pulling on his jacket.

"Hey," Mark said, rubbing his eyes. "Where are you going?"  
  
Roger turned in surprise to see his small friend leaning against the kitchen counter, his eyes drowsy and each of his hairs fighting to stick up in a different direction. He knew, instinctively, that Mark had been awake this whole time again, listening to make sure that he was all right.    
  
"I don't know," Roger replied. "Out."  
  
Mark nodded. Roger's steady descent into things Mark couldn't even imagine terrified him, but he knew better than to try to stop his obstinate friend.  Part of him hoped, somewhat desperately, that maybe it would be good for Roger, that maybe this helped him let go of what had happened.  All he could do was wait and be around whenever he came home.  
  
"Okay," Mark said. "Wake me up when you come home?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
Mark looked at him sadly, hoping that Roger couldn't see the desperation he felt. The musician must have gotten some sense of it, however, because his expression softened and he paused with his hand on the doorknob.  
  
"I'll be fine," he said softly. "Get some sleep Mark."   
  
A moment later the door closed behind him.   
  


*

It was hours later when Mark opened his eyes in drowsy confusion.  He was unsure of what had woken him, and it took several moments for his eyes adjust to the light.  Once they did he could distinguish Roger's dark silhouette beside his bed.  
  
"Hey," Roger slurred. "I'm home."  
  
"You're drunk," Mark countered softly, very aware of the woman beside him.  He carefully lifted himself out of bed and took his friend by the shoulders, turning him so that the light from outside landed across his face.  Roger's eyes were hazy and distant, the blood drained from his lifeless cheeks.  "And high. What are you on?"  
  
Roger laughed blearily at his filmmaker, at the pretended knowledge in his voice.  Mark was so naive.  Anything that he knew about drugs and death and _real_ pain had come from him.  Roger began to calmly catalog a list of various club drugs, knowing that any moment Mark would slip into Mom-mode and take care of him.  

Mark took his friend's arm and led him out of the bedroom.  Roger was loud and clumsy when he was drunk or high, and Maureen was still sleeping obliviously.  When Roger tripped over his own feet halfway across the living room, Mark was ready for it and caught him around the waist.  He maneuvered Roger, unresisting but unhelpful, over to the couch and carefully lay him down.  He turned to walk away, but his friend's cold hand encircled his wrist.

"Don't go," Roger implored quietly, suddenly looking serious and vulnerable.  
  
Mark lay a hand over his, willing away the frightened look in his eyes.  
  
"I'm not going anywhere," he said softly. After a long moment, he gently pried himself loose from Roger's steely, nerveless grasp. "I'm just want to get you some water," he said. "You're going to get dehydrated with all of that shit in your system."  
  
As he walked toward the kitchen, Roger punched a sofa pillow in anger.

"Goddamn it Mark," he said brutally. "I don't need you to fucking take care of me!"  
  
"Yes," Mark said, not unkindly, as he returned and forced the glass of water into Roger's hands. "You do."

Nothing about this night came unexpectedly.  The two of them had played out this exact scenario at least a dozen times before, and Mark had come to anticipate when Roger's abrupt mood changes - the definitive sign of alcohol in his system - would come.  The musician capitulated, swinging from rage and indignation to a morose kind of introspection almost instantaneously as he took a deep drink from the glass in his hand.  He turned his head to look out of the window at the building across the street, unable to face the worried, earnest looks of his disappointed friend anymore.  This was one of the few things Mark would never understand about him.  Mark, who never did drugs, rarely drank, hated the loud, pulsating crowd of a party or club.  Mark who just stayed at home, safe in his own fucking little world of films and pert, bitchy girlfriends and denial.  Mark who didn't have the image of her last breaths constantly behind his eyelids. 

Mark watched Roger's expression cloud and knew that he was thinking about April again.  He hadn't talked about her once since that night, hadn't even said her name, but Mark knew that he thought about her often.  The evidence was in the silence that surrounded him even when he was talking, the partying, the drinking and drugs.  Mark could see all the unspoken thoughts and emotions inside Roger's head and behind his carefully veiled eyes destroying him slowly and systematically.  He kept his distance from everything and everyone, resisting even Mark's constant, subtle attempts to draw him out, despite the fact that Mark was one of the few people Roger had never seemed to feel the need to push away roughly when he got too close.  That at least hadn't changed, but he now kept Mark firmly at arm's length.  This unresponsiveness was beginning to destroy Mark as well, because Roger was the only one he felt he could reach out to anymore.  
  
"I miss her too," Mark finally murmured, hoping to elicit some kind of response from the musician. He couldn't stand to lose both of them.

  
If he had had the idea that Roger might turn to him with tears in his eyes and pull him into a fierce hug, the words finally spilling from his incoherent lips, Mark would have been disappointed.  But he knew better than to expect.  Roger's expression remained the same, hard and impenetrable, his eyes firmly averted.   
  
"She's dead Mark," he finally said flatly. "She killed herself, and she killed me. What else is there to say?"  
  
"That you loved her!" Mark said, stung by the cold cruelty of his words. "That you two loved each other, and it was everything.  That it's killing you that she's gone!"   
  
"**_AIDS _**is killing me Mark!" Roger shouted suddenly, jumping to his feet, the world swaying dangerously before his eyes.  "Not.. her," he whispered.  
  


Mark only stared at his friend, into his crazy swimming eyes, for a long moment before standing abruptly and snatching the empty glass of water from the coffee table.  He walked to the kitchen and turned on the tap, refilling the cup and keeping his back to his friend.  As if he had to be reminded that Roger was dying.  Every time he looked at the musician, part of his mind was reminding him that someday he would look up and Roger wouldn't be there.  
  


The heartbroken anger pulsing off of his silent friend instantly deflated Roger's rage.  It left him in a long, hard sigh.  He approached Mark, laying an impotent hand on his shoulder in a hesitant apologetic gesture.  This wasn't the first time he had flown off the handle at Mark for no reason.  He deserved so much for all that he did, and the least of it was Roger's misdirected anger.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I just get so mad sometimes that I forget that you lost her too."  
  
Roger felt something in Mark relent, and his smaller friend turned and wrapped his arms around him, his eyes closed.  Roger felt him shaking and pulled the filmmaker closer.

_"There's something about his arms.  I don't know. He reaches out to you so rarely, but once he does, nothing else really matters."_

Mark held onto Roger tightly, feeling the guilt rising in his throat.  It had become a familiar sensation, one that he couldn't control.  Every time he looked at Roger, or touched him, he felt like he was betraying them both.  But the heavy culpability in his stomach was almost easier to take than this feeling of shaking in Roger's arms, feeling his fingers run over his shoulders lightly, comfortingly.  He pulled away suddenly.  
  
Mark stuttered out an excuse as Roger looked at him in confusion.  "I-I'm exhausted," he said. "I really need to get to sleep, and so do you.  Can I get you anything?"

"No," Roger replied, beginning to shut down again. Mark watched in frustrated despair as a curtain fell over his face and he withdrew back into himself. "No, go to sleep Mark."   
  
Mark nodded miserably and began to walk toward his bedroom. 

"Mark."

He turned to look back the musician, standing with his hands in his pockets, his eyes deep and unreadable.  "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Mark forced a slight smile and nodded before turning to open the door to his room.  

_Thanks for what? _he thought.  _Being your perfect enabler, watching quietly as you destroy yourself?  God, I wish you were here April_.  _I can't do this on my own.  I feel so alone without you.  I love you._  
  


Sometimes he realized the irony of this thought, which was a constant litany inside of his head on nights like this.  Because April was Roger's.  They were the ones who were so hopelessly in love, so inseparable, the ones who spent their nights in each other's arms.  That used to drive him crazy.  Some nights he would lay alone in his bed and think of the two of them sleeping all tangled up in each other, Roger's arms draped around her, just to torment himself.  Just to see how much jealousy and longing he could take before he cracked.  But he loved them and the way they loved each other, so he would never have begrudged them the happiness they had managed to snatch away.  
  
_And now I have Maureen._ Mark paused in the doorway, watching her sleep peacefully like he had done at least a million times before. She looked so sweet when she was asleep; there was no sign of the wild capriciousness that dominated her when she was awake.  Maureen loved him.  Maybe.  Close enough for now, at least.  He climbed back in bed beside her and stared at her for a long moment before running his fingers softly over her hair. She had never been a substitute in his eyes.  He might still want someone who was lost to him, but that didn't change the way he felt about Maureen.  She was his reckless, moody, beautiful companion, and he had a constant, vague fear of the inevitable day when she would realize that he was not enough to make her happy. 

But when she was asleep, she was still his. He pulled her close, and she moaned lightly before settling against him. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about the man in the other room or the other woman who used to sleep in this bed, tried not to think at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Part two.  Nothing else to say really. :)  Oh, except I'm sorry for the weird formatting glitches.  I can't seem to fix them, and right now I'm too grateful that the chapters are uploading at all to care too much.  Thanks to everyone who reviewed, it's much appreciated.

Not mine.  Any of them.

II.

Mark was so deeply burrowed in concentration that he only vaguely heard the door open and close behind him.  He had a small screwdriver worked into the center of his camera and was carefully trying to fix a broken mechanism that had kept him from filming that day.  He glanced up briefly from his work to see Roger sticking his head in the refrigerator, rummaging for food that they didn't have.  Collins had moved out a little over a month ago and with him had gone their steady supply of flood.

"What are you working on?" Roger asked, screwing the cap off of a bottle of water. His nose and cheeks were red from the bitter cold outside, and he was breathing heavily from sprinting up the seven flights of stairs to their top-floor loft.

"A piece broke," Mark replied, turning his attention back to the camera on the table in front of him. "I can't get any work done until I fix it."  
  
"I bet that's driving you crazy," Roger said, plopping down casually on the couch.  
  
Mark looked up at him with a half smile. "Yeah."  
  
_"Are you a photographer?" Mark heard a voice ask.  He looked up to find Roger's new girlfriend standing near him.  She indicated the prints in his hand._

_"Um, not really," he replied. "It's just sort of an obsessive hobby."_

_She smiled.  She had a pretty smile.  _

_"I have a few of those myself.  Mind if I look?"_

_She sat down in a chair near him, and he handed her the small stack of prints that had just finished drying in his makeshift darkroom.  She - April - flipped through them thoughtfully, her dark, heavy hair falling into her eyes.  She paused frequently to brush it back behind her ears.  Roger was in his bedroom changing; they were getting ready to go out.  Mark had met April briefly twice the week before, and though he hadn't exchanged more than a dozen words with her, he found himself liking her.  He had gathered from Roger that she was a graduate student at NYU, and they had met at convenience store before running into each other later the same night at a jazz concert.  Since then, Roger had disappeared almost every night with her.    _

_She gave each photograph lingering attention until she came to a series he had taken just a few days ago.  She skimmed over them quickly, and Mark laughed. _

_"Don't worry," he said when she looked up. "I don't like those either.  I was just trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with them."_

_She smiled.  He had rightly interpreted her indifference to the pictures.  "Try exposing the paper a little longer?" she suggested.  "It looks like the contrast could be a little higher."_

_Mark looked down at the photographs carefully.  "You're right," he said, slightly surprised.  Five or ten more seconds of exposure would considerably improve the picture of an old couple he had seen in the park last week.  "You've studied photography?"_

_"No, but my father used to have the same obsessive hobby.  I picked up a few things I guess."_

_She glanced back down at the photographs in her hand, and she came upon an older print he had made of Roger several months ago.  Her eyes lingered on it, and her expression sobered._

_"No wait," she said. "I've figured out your real problem.  You need to take pictures of what you know.  You can totally tell the difference."_

_She found several more pictures of Roger that Mark had taken at the same gig.  She seemed to favor one, a black and white of Roger half sitting on a tall stool on stage, his arms around his acoustic guitar, his eyes closed.  The lights and audience were all out of focus, the photograph centering on Roger's face as he sung._

_"This is beautiful Mark," she said.  He began to shake his head, but she laid a hand on his arm. "Really."  She laughed. "No more old folks in the park, jus Roger."_

Mark chuckled. "I don't think so.  Roger hates it when I take his picture.  He doesn't even know these exist."

_  
She smiled and nodded. "Well, I think you should show him sometime."  
_  
"Oh hey, I got a gig for tonight," Roger said, interrupting Mark's thoughts.   
  
Mark looked up from his camera. "With the band?"  
  
"No, just me. Brad's singer cancelled, and he asked me to fill in for a couple of nights.  Want to come?"  
  
"Yeah," Mark replied. "Wouldn't miss it."  
  


Truthfully, Mark hated bars and was slightly impatient to get his camera fixed, but he was too surprised by the fact that Roger was going to play solo in public again and had asked him to be there to think of refusing.  He wondered what had changed inside his friend's head.  If it meant spending the entire night in a smoky bar and forsaking his camera completely, Mark was willing to do it.  And he did love to watch Roger sing.  

"Where's Maureen?" Roger asked.  
  
Mark shrugged. "I'm not sure. She said she had some errands to run. She's been gone for a while."

*

Maureen walked through the small grocery store, pulling things off of the shelves almost without thought. The boys would never think to buy their own food, no matter how much they might complain about how hungry they were. They had probably starved themselves half to death before Collins moved in with them, and they would probably do so again if she didn't continue to go shopping occasionally. _The boys_.  Fuck.  They were like one entity: Mark-and-Roger.  You couldn't get one without the other.  Maureen was firmly and bitterly convinced that everything would have been fine if it weren't for Roger.

She was angry and hurt, and the groceries were feeling the effect of it as she threw them carelessly into the basket. She wasn't even exactly sure why she was angry.  She was mad at Roger for just existing, that much she knew.  The vexation in her rose at the thought of his pensive looks and tortured, downcast eyes, living in his own little world of self-pity, as if he didn't know that he had the ability to snatch Mark away from her with the slightest word or glance.  She was angry at Mark for all of the qualities that had endeared him to her, his selflessness and concern and kindness, when it seemed he only possessed them for the benefit of his brooding musician.  Mark couldn't see it, but Maureen knew something about people who kept their distance, and she saw the coldness and detachment in Roger's eyes.  He would hurt Mark, she was certain of it.  And she was angry.

But perhaps more than that, she was hurt.  Mark's deception and betrayal, however innocent and unintended, cut her deeply.  She hated knowing that he would always pick his broken, insensitive friend over her.  She hated the picture of the smiling dark haired girl with the intelligent brown eyes that had once lived on Mark's bedside table but had disappeared since she moved in.  She hated the picture he kept hidden in the pages of the battered blue notebook that he always carried around but didn't let anyone touch, a black and white photograph that he must have taken himself years before.

_How could it have taken me so long to see it!_ But she supposed that wasn't entirely true.  She must have always suspected what was going on beneath the veneer of life in the loft.  After all, she wasn't blind, and she certainly wasn't stupid.  She had simply refused to pay attention, to question the tinges in her stomach, because this really wasn't a thing she wanted to realize.  The beginning with Mark, when his eyes were hers alone, had been so wonderful.  The shadow of Roger, and of _her_, had always been there, but she had been able to overpower them.  Mark had adored her, and she loved being adored.  Maybe she even began to truly love Mark the way that he loved her.

But there was no way to know now.  When she began to feel him slipping away, or began to realize that he had never really been hers to begin with, her eyes began to wander.  That's why she was really here now, shopping for them, trying to appease some of the guilt she felt for what she had been doing just an hour ago.

_But I have no reason to feel guilty, _she thought mutinously. _I'm not doing anything different from what he is. If he can want someone else, so can I!_

She could justify it almost entirely.

Twenty minutes later, she was standing in front of the seventh-story door to her new apartment, grocery bags in hand, breathing heavily from the trip up.  She opened the door to find Mark working silently on his camera and Roger sitting on the table, fiddling with his guitar.  Not an unusual sight.  They both looked up as she came in, and Mark smiled and stood as Roger turned his attention back to the string he had been tuning with no change in his expression.  Mark took the grocery bags from her arms and kissed her almost timidly before moving to unpack the bags at the kitchen counter.  Maybe she was overreacting.  Mark still loved her.  She had always found a way to sabotage every remotely stable relationship she had ever had, and that's what she was doing now.  Grasping at ridiculous straws that would allow her to give herself some distance from Mark's affections.

As she began to place the food he had unpacked in cabinets, he sidled around behind her and put his arms around her waist. Mark always held her like that, so gently, as if he feared she would break.  She smiled as he laid his lips softly against her shoulder.

"Thanks for shopping," he said. 

"My pleasure," she replied. "Coffee?"

She turned within the circle of his arms to face him, holding up a new can.  He laughed, pulling her closer.

"You," he said, kissing her, "are a domestic goddess."

She turned toward the coffee maker, immediately squelching the twinge of guilt that she felt. Mark, she realized, as he returned to his camera, was so guileless that expected everyone else was as well.  He would never see it coming.

"Hey," he said, a few moments later, looking up at her. "Do you have plans for tonight?" 

"No. What's going on?"

"Roger's playing a gig uptown. Want to go with me?"

Maureen's eyes flew to Roger, sitting on the table fiddling with his guitar, seemingly unaware of what was going on around him. She tensed. 

_No, I don't want to go! Why would I want to spend an entire evening watching you watch him the way you do?_

But she heard herself agree.  She would prove how unconcerned she was by acting casual about everything.  Prove it.  To whom, she wasn't exactly sure.  But she would go to see Roger's gig to support her roommate and fellow performer and to prove that nothing was going to happen.


	3. Chapter 3

School breaks and server issues delayed me for a little while, but I'm back.  I swear, the entire story will be posted in the next two weeks or so.  Reviews are adored and appreciated.

The song lyrics here are from Thieves' Crossing's "Bring Me Home".  The name One Year Lease is borrowed from a theatre company in New York founded by recent Vassar grads.  That's all I stole for this chapter, except for the characters, who belong to Jon Larson.

III.

"What time is it?" Mark said, leaning toward Maureen in hopes that she would be able to hear him over the din of the crowded bar.

"What?" she returned loudly, cupping a hand around her ear. 

"Nothing," Mark said. She gestured toward him confused, and he waved his hands in the air. "Nothing," he repeated, raising his voice. She nodded in understanding, sipping at her drink.

Mark turned back to the beer that he had barely touched since they had arrived at the bar, twisting it idly between his fingers.  Alcohol didn't appeal to him that much normally, but he needed to have something in his hands.  He was beginning to feel less and less supportive about this whole gig thing.  Mark could practically feel the room shrinking, pushing all of its crowded, drunk, smoky inhabitants closer in toward him. He wondered if maybe he had social anxiety disorder or something. He wondered if he should be on some kind of medication. He laughed silently at himself, smiling down at the tabletop.  He wondered if everyone was as neurotic as he was and just hid it better.

He was seriously considering going to catch a breath of fresh air outside when Roger walked out onto the stage.  The musician threw a casual smile out at the audience as he sat with his guitar, adeptly adjusting the microphones around him.  Mark was always amazed by how comfortable his friend seemed to be with so many eyes on him, how naturally it all came to him.  Roger plucked at his guitar strings for a moment, checking to make sure the instrument it was tuned properly.  Mark could tell from hours of listening to this exact sequence of notes that it was.  Then he leaned forward and introduced himself briefly to the crowd, squinting past the lights for a moment to spot Maureen and Mark by the bar.  A small smile just for them lit his face.  Mark felt the corresponding pulling at the corners of his own lips.  Then Roger began to sing, and the rest of the smoky room disappeared for Mark entirely.

_"I can feel your eyes upon my face   
all the way over here..."_

There was something about watching Roger sing that had always fascinated him.  He used to just sit on the couch and watch him practice for hours, never seeming to tire of it.  It was the charisma in Roger's voice, which made him so hard to turn away from, that had led them to being friends in the first place.  Mark used to set up the sound system for a bar near the loft where Roger began to play regular gigs, and he would always stay for the intense, young-looking musician's sets.  Ostensibly he was monitoring the equipment, but in reality the deep eyes and honest voice of the guitar player intrigued him.  After a few weeks, they began to talk between sets and found that they had more to say to each other than either would have imagined.

It was the honesty in Roger's felty, hypnotic voice that had hooked him.  It conveyed the sort of truth that Mark had always tried to bring out in his films, but he was never able to refine it as perfectly as Roger did with his music.  Roger's solo material had always been softer and sadder than the music his band played, more a reflection of the perceptive man who felt and understood things deeply that only Mark and a few other people had come to know.  The harder, edgier rock of the band corresponded perfectly with the protective shell Roger had fastened for himself out of apathy and a quick temper.  But truly, he was a poet hiding in the guise of a rock star.__

The red and blue lights of the club were dim and subdued on Roger, casting color across his face and hands as they moved lightly, reverently, over the strings of his guitar. All of the pain and anger that had been etched into the lines of his face seemed no longer visible.  Mark wished passionately for the Nikon he had pawned almost a year ago.  He wanted to be able to keep this image of Roger forever, the way he looked when the tragedies of this year had dropped from his face and deep eyes.  The way he had looked before, when she was still there, when Mark hadn't had to miss either of them.

_"I know I've seemed so far away  
the past couple of days, what can I do?  
It's kind of nice, in a way  
but I'm just sorry that it has to hurt you..."_

Maureen casually glanced over at Mark but froze at the look in her boyfriend's eyes.  He was so intent on his musician, focused in a way that was usually reserved strictly for his work.  She knew he had forgotten that she was even there, sucked back into the world he had created for himself out of idealized memories and subliminated desires.  She wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to laugh or cry.

"_I don't know what's kept my silent somehow.  
It seems my heart wants to say something that my lips won't allow..."_

Maureen's attention flew back to Roger, the words of the song finally infiltrating her ears. Jesus, was Mark even_ listening_? He couldn't be. He wouldn't have such a calm and dreamy expression if he were actually hearing the words that were coming out of Roger's mouth.  Christ, it sounded like Mark wrote them! But, she figured, it was just as well.  She wasn't sure if she could sit here next to Mark as he listened to Roger's singing such words, watch him innerly hope and debate if they were about him.

_"But my heart can't hear the singing,  
or maybe it just doesn't like the song.  
Although it's heard it all along..."_

The scared and reluctant confession of roommate to another.  But she knew better.  Roger was undoubtedly and unequivocally straight and, more importantly, far too self-absorbed to realize that his best friend had toppled stupidly in love with him. 

_"So I lay low for now, for tonight.  
I lay low my sweetheart now tonight."_

And she would have continued to believe that with complete confidence if Roger hadn't looked up in that moment and stared straight at Mark.

*

Between songs Mark turned to where Maureen should have been sitting only to find her gone. Her purse was still beside him, so she must have just slipped away while he was watching Roger.  He didn't think anything of it.  Roger began playing moments later, and Mark turned his attention back to his friend on stage.  He recognized the opening notes of the song as one Roger had written over a year before during a blizzard that had kept them basically trapped in the loft for several days.  He hadn't heard it since April died. 

_"Roger! Please! Must we listen to this song over and over?" April demanded, throwing a couch cushion at him._

_"Yes," Roger replied, smiling, as he parried the cushion with ease. "The only way I can fix it is to work on it." He began to strum the same chords._

_"So help me God Roger, I will throw the guitar out of the window if you don't play something different!"_

_Mark laughed softly from where he was sitting, cross-legged on the kitchen counter, reading. He didn't even have to look up to be able to see the entire scene perfectly in his head. April was half reclining on the couch, biting on a highlighter, trying to read a journal article for class the next day, and Roger was half-sitting on the table with his guitar in his arms. He was trying not to laugh at her as she ran her fingers through her hair the way she did when she got frustrated.  It would only take a few more measures of the song for her to lose it. _

_"Give me that pick!" she cried at that moment, laughing as she flung herself across the room. "I swear Roger, it's gone! It's out the window!"_

_But Roger was too quick for her. As Mark looked up, he stashed the pick in his pocket and caught her around the waist, disarming her of her highlighter, and pulled her into a sweet, teasing kiss.  When their lips parted, April's eyes flew to Mark. She saw the expression in his face and sent him her most comforting look._

_"I love you," she mouthed as Roger returned to his song._

_Mark smiled sadly. "I love you too."_

_That night he woke up as she slipped into bed beside him._

_"How are you?" she asked softly, curling up against him._

_"Okay," he sighed. "It's just hard. I don't know how much longer I can hide this."_

_"I know."_

*

Maureen savagely ripped a paper towel from the dispenser in the ladies' room. Mark hadn't even noticed that she had left, hadn't so much as looked up.  He was too tightly wrapped in his own little dream world to see anything but Roger.  And it _was_ a dream world, of that she was certain.  It didn't really mean anything that Roger had looked at Mark while he was singing.  Wasn't it natural to seek out a familiar face in the crowd?  She did it often enough.  He probably couldn't see anything with all of those lights in his eyes anyway.

But it didn't change the fact that Mark wanted someone else.  That thought deflated her vehemence a quickly and surely as anything could.  Her shy, loving little Mark didn't want her; he wanted someone else entirely.

Someone he could never have.

She almost felt sorry for him.  He would never see what was so patently obvious to her, that Roger would never want him, or love him, the way that he hoped. 

_Mark wants someone else._

_Well_, she thought bitterly, _he isn't the only one._

She involuntarily looked up to meet the eyes of a pretty young redhead in the mirror. As her gaze lingered on the girl's full lips, she almost laughed aloud at the hysterical irony of her own thoughts.

*

Half an hour later Roger's set was over, and Mark was formulating an excuse to leave.  Whatever appeal the bar might have once had was quickly evaporating.  Maureen had returned and was on her third drink, a fine line creasing her brow, and Roger had been downing shots consistently since he had come to sit with them.  It made Mark almost irrationally angry watching his friend diligently set himself to the task of getting drunk.  He knew this would be one of those nights when he helped Roger stumbled into bed or waited up all hours because he never came home at all.  He supposed he knew _why_ Roger did these things, but he could never fully understand it. 

Mark stood and laid his hand lightly on the small of Maureen's back.  She turned to look at him, and he was again struck by just how beautiful she was.  Even with that touch of boredom and aversion in her eyes, she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. 

"I need to go," he said. "I completely forgot, I have to pick up a piece of equipment, and the place closes soon."

She frowned. "Do you have to do that now? Can't it wait?"

"No," Mark lied, surprised and actually somewhat touched by her annoyance. "I need it for shooting tomorrow, and I'm really behind.  Greg needs the footage for editing."  Mark worked periodically with One Year Lease Prod., a small production company in SoHo owned by three progressive young filmmakers.  "I shouldn't be long," he continued, "but if I don't make it back here before you guys leave, I'll see you at home?"

She nodded, still pouting faintly. "Sure."

He kissed her forehead and turned to leave when she caught his arm, pulling him back to her. 

"Tell me you love me Mark," Maureen said, her eyes serious, her grip around his arm firm.

"I love you Maureen," he said curiously, his confusion over her sudden mood change apparent. 

She looked at him evaluating, and he was vaguely uncomfortable under the weight of her eyes.  He didn't know what she was looking for, but apparently whatever she found satisfied her.  She pulled him down for a brief kiss and let him go.

Mark turned and headed for the doorway, pulling his coat on, puzzling over Maureen's behavior.  He was halfway to the door when Roger, returning from the bar, stepped in front of him and blocked his way.

"You leaving?" he asked, his voice calm from the alcohol in his system.

"Yeah," Mark replied. "I have to go pick up--"

"That piece for your camera?" Roger interrupted, a kind of amused challenge in his eyes.

_Shit. He knows._

Mark smiled tightly, upset that Roger had seen through him so easily. "Yeah."

"I figured you could go about a day without filming anything," he replied, taking a long drink from the beer in his hand. "See you later."

Mark paused for a moment before laying a hand on his friend's shoulder. "You were great tonight Roger."

"Yeah," Roger replied flatly. "I guess."

Mark opened his mouth to respond but realized that he didn't know what to say.  He squeezed Roger's shoulder and headed out into the cold.

*

"Where is Mark?" Maureen snapped, slightly drunk and more inclined to be irritable for it.

"Mark?" Roger laughed, turning to look at her. "Mark is gone."

"But he said he was..."

"Jesus Maureen, did you really believe he was coming back? You know he hates these kinds of places," Roger answered.

Roger and Maureen had been sitting next to each other at the bar ever since Mark left but had barely exchanged a dozen words.  They were wary companions and both in dark, silent moods.  They concentrated on their drinks, occasionally glancing over at the other.  Roger had spent the majority of the night being further occupied by a pretty blonde fan with three earrings in each ear and glittery eye make-up. 

"Yeah, he hates these places.  But he came here for you," Maureen muttered, catching the eye of the bartender she had been silently flirting with since Mark left. She smiled slowly in a way that had never failed her before, and he smiled back as he slid another drink across the surface of the bar toward her. 

Roger watched the entire scene, shaking his head. "You certainly seem heartbroken that he's gone."

"Fuck you Roger."  The remark was sincere but lacked energy.

"You know," he returned flatly, "it's good thing I never really liked you, or that might have hurt my feelings."

"Why don't you like me?" she asked seriously, turning to look at him. He was drunk too, she could tell by the far-off look in his eyes.

Roger leaned in close to her. She could feel his breath against her face as he spoke, and she suddenly became intensely aware of their proximity. "Because I know you're going to hurt him."

"What makes you so damn sure?" she stiffened.

He laughed, a deep, languid rustle in his chest. "I'm not stupid Maureen. I can see what's going on."

_Really? I bet you're not as perceptive as you think!_

"Mark can take care of himself," she said.

"Not when it comes to you," Roger replied, moving closer to her. His knee was pressed against her thigh, and she could practically feel the heat radiating off of his body. "Listen, I know your type but he doesn't. He actually believes you love him."

"Who's to say I don't?" she asked with an infuriating smile.  She knew that she wasn't the only one who was aware of how close they were sitting.  She could see the hunger in his suddenly unguarded eyes, and it gave her a strange thrill of power.

"Would you be here now if you did?" Roger demanded quietly. "Look Maureen, I'm hardly in a position to tell you how to live your life.  I just want you to know that I don't buy the act." 

"Point noted.  You know, you sure are an asshole when you're drunk," she continued, in the same vein of honesty. "I thought it might loosen you up a little, but you're always the brooding musician aren't you?"

Roger smiled slightly. "It's part of my rock-star image."

"He smiles! Un-fucking-believable."

An hour later, Maureen and Roger stumbled back toward the loft together.  They had sniped at each other through a whole new series of drinks, finding that once they began talking the jibes they could direct at each other were nearly endless.  The alcohol coursing through their systems had made Roger reckless and Maureen inviting, and by the end of the night they were laughing, glancing surreptitiously at each other from the corners of cautious but craving eyes.  

"Mark's not home?" Roger mumbled, finding the front door of the apartment locked. He dug into his pockets until he unearthed his keys. As he was struggling with the lock, Maureen stumbled and fell against him, laughing sloppily at her own clumsiness.  Roger caught her and held her up until she was able to regain her balance. 

Later, neither could be sure of how it happened or who instigated it.  They were standing so close, and Maureen remembered feeling for a moment Roger's hot breath against her face, coming quickly and shallowly, before their feverish lips met.  They stumbled through the door, wrapped in a bruising, feral embrace.  Maureen tugged impatiently at Roger's clothing as he wound his fingers tightly into her hair.  Somehow they had both known that the night would end this way from the moment that Mark had walked out of that bar.


	4. Chapter 4

Um, yeah, I don't really have anything to say about this chapter.  Except I still don't own the characters I guess.  And that reviews are greatly appreciated.  To all the Valparaisos!

IV.

Mark dropped cross-legged into the grass. He pulled his coat tighter around him to try to block out the biting wind and leaned forward, tracing his fingertips over the stone in front of him. 

"Hi," he said softly. He hated that you could hear the traffic from here. It seemed like such an irreverent, insensitive intrusion. But at least the streetlamps were a soft blue color, unlike the orange lamps outside the loft. If you squinted your eyes you could almost believe it was just moonlight.

Mark did this occasionally, came here to sit and think.  Maybe he did it too much; he wasn't really sure.  It didn't particularly make him feel any closer to her, or to God, or to any sense of closure that this must have afforded some people.  But he did it nonetheless.

In retrospect, he supposed that she seemed perfect to him.  Maybe that was the way that it always worked, the flaws faded more quickly.  Or maybe it was because people felt guilty remembering the bad things.  Mark could remember, but it all seemed remarkably irrelevant now that she was gone.  He didn't feel the need to think about her spectacular temper or her ability to break anything she touched, because he missed her smile and her intelligence and her warmth so much sometimes that he felt like he couldn't breathe. 

_Roger still hadn't come out of his room. It had been almost two weeks, and the silent face of his door was staring at Mark, daring him to go crazy.  He wouldn't get through this without Roger, he knew that.  He couldn't bear to lose them both. _

_Mark threw open the door to the medicine cabinet violently, rummaging around for some Tylenol. His hand brushed an empty prescription bottle, and it fell into the sink, rolling around against the porcelain surface. He knew immediately what it was and felt a great sense of trepidation as he slowly picked it up with hesitant, shaking fingers.  It was April's medication.  She was manic-depressive, and the medication helped her control her moods.  _

_But the bottle was empty._

_Mark's mind suddenly flew back to weeks before, a conversation they had had._

"Are you going to the club tonight?" she asked, shaking a pill from the bottle and swallowing it with an ease born of familiarity.

"I don't know. Probably," Mark said, frowning. "You're running low."

"Yeah, I know.  I need to go to the pharmacy."  She sighed.  "I hate this stuff.  It makes my mind so cloudy, and I'm not even sure I need it anymore.  I haven't been symptomatic for years."

"Yeah, but that's because of the medication, right?"

"Probably, but I've read that manic-depression can go away on its own when it's diagnosed in teenagers, and I was fourteen at the time.  What if I don't actually need it anymore, and I'm just feeling bad and emptying my bank account for no reason?"

"Yeah, but... you're going to refill the prescription anyway, right?"

"Of course, I'm just talking.  Better safe than crazy, after all."

_The number of pills left in the bottom of that bottle couldn't have possibly lasted her more than a few days. She must have been off of her medication for weeks before.. before she..._

_"Roger!"_

_Mark burst in on his friend, his tortured eyes wide and hands shaking almost imperceptibly.  Roger was lying on his bed, staring idly out of the window. He turned slowly to look up at his friend with dull, lifeless eyes._

_"What?" he asked flatly._

_"Take your AZT," Mark replied, tossing the bottle at him. His tone was strangely urgent._

_"Damnit Mark, the last fucking thing -- "_

_"**Take it**!" _

"I should have known," Mark whispered. "I should have done something."

The night April died was still unreal to him. It was like watching one of his movies - the way he opened the bathroom door to find Roger rocking on the floor with her in his arms, covered in her blood, sobbing - and he devoted the same obsessive, focused attention to it. He replayed the images in mind over and over, trying to seek out some kind of logic in it, find some clue he had overlooked before that would lead to a satisfactory explanation. He knew he should have seen it coming; in retrospect the signs seemed so clear.  Her complaints about the way the lithium made her feel and how she had thought she might not need it anymore, the progressive darkening of her moods just before that night, the inordinate amount of stress she was under from school and a fight with her mother.  All of those combined with the AIDS diagnosis, which was still a complete mystery to them all, must have been enough to push a highly rational but emotional girl over the edge.

The day she died Roger became very still and quiet, and he stayed that way. Many people misinterpreted this for extreme stoicism, but Mark recognized the shock deep in the back of the musician's eyes and knew that Roger's true reaction hadn't even begun.  Mark might have come completely dismantled himself, but he had Roger to focus on.  The need to take care of his friend kept him in the immediate moment full of mundane thoughts and details, and that kept him sane.  With little protest, he took Roger - practically catatonic - by the arm and led him home from the hospital as though he were a blind man.  In many ways he was.  After Mark laid him into bed and turned off the lights, he returned to his own room to stare at the picture on his bedside table, surprised and almost frightened that he could look at that photograph of her, smiling broadly and looking as beautiful as she ever had, without crying.  He eventually fell into a blessedly dreamless sleep and woke up some hours later in astonishment to find Roger sleeping beside him.  It was the closest that Roger had ever come to asking for help.  Mark stared at him for a long time in the harsh daylight that was filtering through the window.  His face was calm and untouched in sleep, just like any normal man's.  Mark didn't want him to wake up, because he knew in his big green eyes he would see the reflection of his own stunned, suffocating misery. 

His gaze eventually drifted from Roger's face to see a piece of paper lying on the sheets between them.  He picked it up curiously.

It was a note, from April.

Not the one that they had found stuck to the bathroom mirror, but another one.  The first note had been scrawled on a post-it, but this was written on a regular sheet of paper in her calm, even hand. 

_I love you guys. Take care of each other._

That was all it said, and Mark found himself staring at the words.  They blurred, and he could no longer make them out, as though they were written in a different language.  His confusion and guilt and wretchedness became a choking ball in the center of his throat.  He wanted to cry and scream at her and demand why she had done such a thing to them, but he would never have the opportunity.  It was impossible to comprehend or accept.

Mark felt Roger stir beside him, and he raised his bleary eyes from the words on the page to find himself locked into Roger's gaze.  There was something in the hopelessness of the other that bound them irrevocably together.

"I couldn't sleep," Roger had finally offered as a hoarse, devastated explanation. "I found that underneath my pillow."

Before Mark had time to figure out how it happened, they were in each others arms, holding onto each other tightly, knowing that they were all they had left in the world that really mattered. Both of their tears finally came as they lay there tangled up in each other for hours, their grips never loosening.

_Just don't let go, god, please don't let go..._

But after that morning Roger disappeared, locked himself in his room and left Mark to face it all alone. 

Mark sighed, knowing that he should be heading home, and stood. He kissed the dandelion he had picked up while walking through the cemetery and placed in on top of her headstone.

"Love you."

*

"We have to tell him."

"No we don't. Roger, are you crazy?" Maureen asked. "We'd only be hurting him, and isn't that what you're so concerned about avoiding?"

She flung that last question at him like a weapon, but Roger was barely listening to what she was saying. Just moments ago they had broken apart, Roger pulling away from her in sudden shock and disgust with himself.  She had sighed, as though she expected this all along, and slowly began to re-button the top three buttons of her blouse, which he had fumbled open.  He had winced, wiping the lipstick off of his numbly tingling lips, realization instantly sobering him as effectively as a crash of cold water.  What in God's name had possessed him to kiss Maureen?  The image of Mark's sweet, trusting face weighed heavily on his already guilty conscience.  After all that Mark had done for him, all he was for him.  Roger had stopped it almost as soon as it started, but he knew that the damage had been done.

"He has a right to know," Roger insisted.  "Maybe cheating on Mark comes easily to you, but I won't be able to look him in the face."

"_You're_ not cheating on him!" Maureen suddenly burst, leaping up from the seat she had taken on the couch. "Jesus! What is it with you two?

Roger turned to look at her, his eyes wide at her unexpected, cryptic outburst.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Please." She laughed. "As if you didn't know, as if you hadn't noticed."

But his face was still blank with confusion, and after a few moments she gave up waiting for the realization to come to him.  She might be waiting for a while; denial, in Roger's hand, was a particularly powerful tool.  And frankly, she was growing tired of spending all her time with uncommunicative men harboring suppressed desires.  

Maureen stalked off to Mark's bedroom.  She found a bag on the floor of the closest and began to fill it with clothes that she pulled down randomly from hangers and out of drawers.  Roger stood in the doorway watching her, and she could practically feel the incomprehension in his heavy gaze.  

"Maureen," he said. "I have no idea what you're saying."

"Of course you don't," she said calmly even as she slammed a dresser door shut. "Boys are so fucking _blind_."

She was beginning to get to him; she could tell as she swept past him out of the bedroom.  He was clenching his fists by his side in agitation.

"Why don't you just say whatever the fuck it is you mean?" he snapped waspishly.

She dropped the bag in her hand and turned to look at him. 

"Who's the song about Roger?" she asked.

She could have sworn she saw him pale. "What?"

"The song Roger!" she cried, her patience and cool, calm front evaporating. "Who the fuck is the song about?  And don't tell me it's about her, because we both know that's bullshit."

"You don't know a goddamn thing Maureen.  I wrote that song over a year ago, it's about..."

When he hesitated, she jumped on it.

"Go on," she said, "tell me it's about her.  I dare you to lie to me with your dead girlfriend's name on your lips.  Use them to betray another person you 'love' tonight."

She knew she had pushed too hard then.  Roger took a step toward her, looking for all the world like he was going to hit her, his eyes blazing.  He seemed to gain control over himself, however, before Maureen had a chance to betray herself by stepping back or flinching away.

"What do you want from me Maureen?" he asked stonily, pressing the heels of his hands against his pounding eyes.

"I want you to keep quiet about this," she replied.

"Why?"

"Because telling him will do more harm than good.  You may feel like it's your goddamn _obligation_, but I know what I'm talking about."

"Keeping it from him will only make it worse.  And besides, when did Mark's well-being become your top priority?  When you were fucking other guys behind his back?" 

"And when the fuck did it become yours?" she snapped. "When you were making him deal with your bullshit addictions even though he was grieving too or when you were groping his girlfriend?  Sacrifice his happiness for your own peace of mind if that's what you have to do, Roger.  I mean, hell, it's never stopped you before.  But I swear to you, it's the worst possible thing you can do to him right now.  Leave it be."

"Christ Maureen!" Roger said, the full force of his frustration breaking through.  He couldn't stand her smug superiority, the way she was asserting herself as the window into Mark's soul.  She didn't know; she hadn't been there.  "You've been around _how_ long now and you think you know Mark? You think you understand him? Give him some fucking credit!"

Maureen sighed.  He wouldn't see.  Roger would never give up that idea that he had to protect Mark was from his selfish bitch girlfriend, never realizing that his own selfishness was what he should really be sheltering the filmmaker from.  She knew the reality of the situation: Mark could never have Roger.  But to deny him the world he had created in his head where they were such perfect friends that it didn't matter was beyond any cruelty she could do in the name of honesty.  Roger however, blind and stupid, would charge straight into that fragile, crystalline structure screaming the harsh truth because it was 'right', martyring himself for a righteous cause.  Only it was Mark that would be destroyed; he would never be able to put the shards of his dream back together again.  

"I think we've firmly established that you don't like me Roger," she said wearily, "but try to listen to what I'm saying, because - believe it or not - I care about him a lot.  You are too close to this situation to see it like I do.  _Don't tell him_.  Just let me go away.  He'll learn to live without me surprisingly quickly, if I'm not mistaken, but not if he knows what happened here tonight.  You don't need to protect him from me anymore - _you won_ - but you need to protect him from this."

Roger was looking at her intensely but didn't say anything.  At least he was thinking about what she said.  She bent to retrieve her bag and walked toward the door.

"I'll call him tomorrow so we can do this the right way," she said, pulling on her coat.

The musician suddenly seemed to realize what the bag full of her clothes meant, and she saw a spark of panic in his gray-green eyes.

"No, don't! Not because of me," he said. "I may not like you, but he needs you."                            

She smiled sadly, opening the door and winding a scarf around her neck.

"No he doesn't," she said. "He needs _you_, so you've got to be the one who's there for him, okay?  Remember what I said."

And she was gone, the door shutting softly behind her.  Roger couldn't decide if he was relieved or disappointed.  Confusion permeated his mind and heart, and he backed away from the door slowly.  He sat on the table, Maureen's words running a riot through his head, and waited for Mark to come home. 


	5. Chapter 5

Slowly but surely.  I think most of you reading this read Beneath the Surface, so you know what to expect.  (By the way, I greatly appreciate those of you re-reading this.  I hope the final chapter makes it worth it for you.)  For anyone reading who didn't read it in its first incarnation, just a little clarification.  This story takes place in a world completely separate from RENT.  It's the same characters, but I'm not obeying the RENT rules, so don't expect this to lead to 'we begin on Christmas Eve', because it certainly isn't going to. :)  That's it!  Thanks so much for reading and reviewing; you can't imagine how much I appreciate it.

I don't own them.

V.

Mark opened the door to the loft, vaguely surprised to find it unlocked.  He stepped into the darkened front room, pulling off his jacket and dropping it on a table near the doorway.  As his eyes adjusted, he noticed Roger sitting on the table, staring out of the window, his tense back to him.  Mark frowned in confusion and reached over to flip on the lights.

"Roger?" he said. "You okay?  Why are you sitting here in the dark?"

The musician turned to look at him, blinking at the sudden intrusion of light into the room.  His eyes fell on Mark with great ambivalence, torn between what he thought he should do and the vehemence of Maureen's words, dread that he couldn't avoid the decision any longer and relief that Mark was home.  Roger stared at his friend, thinking of what the tortured half-life he had consigned himself to would be like if he didn't have Mark there with him.  If Maureen was right, if he really could lose him over this, it was a bigger risk than he felt like he was prepared to take.  Mark couldn't leave him; he wouldn't survive it. 

"Roger?" Mark repeated softly when his friend didn't respond. "Is everything okay?  Do- do you feel alright?"

Roger smiled slightly at the trace of rising panic in his voice. "I'm fine Mark."

"Good," he replied, rummaging around in the refrigerator.  He poured two glasses of orange juice as Roger came over to lean on the other side of the kitchen counter and handed one to the musician along with a handful of pills from a bottle in the corner.  Roger quickly swallowed them without comment.

"Did you get the piece for your camera?" Roger asked with a wicked grin.

Mark looked up at him with a smile. "No.  The place was closed by the time I got there."

"That's a shame."

"Yeah."

"So you had to leave the bar for nothing."

"Uh-huh.  Bummer."

Roger tried to laugh, but the sound got lodged in his throat.  An hour of sitting in the dark and silence had not brought him any closer to knowing what he should do.  He wanted to tell Mark so badly, and every moment that he didn't multiplied the overwhelming guilt that he felt exponentially.  But whenever he felt finally resolved, he thought of what Maureen had said.  Was it selfishness to tell him?  Was he just out to relieve his own guilt, headless of whether it was really in Mark's best interest?  The thought of watching Mark's face fall from the effortless kind of happiness that he had now, which had been so rare in the last year, and knowing that he was entirely responsible for it was almost more than Roger could take.  Would he just be compounding the wrong he had done by ripping Mark's eyes open to the betrayal that had been done to him by the two people he loved most in the world?  Or would keeping it from him ultimately be worse?  

"Roger?" the filmmaker's voice was soft, rousing him from his thoughts. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Mark laid his hand over his friends' where they were clenched on the countertop.  Roger glanced up into his concerned blue gaze before looking down at the hand on top of his.  He could still feel Maureen's hair between his fingers, and the maddening sensation juxtaposed with Mark's soft, caring touch was enough to push him over the edge.

"Mark," he said, his voice coming out on a breath. "I need to tell you something."

"What is it?"

Roger laid one of his own hands on top of Mark's.  _God, let this be for the best._

"I kissed Maureen."

Mark stared at him in blank incomprehension.

"What?" he asked.

"I kissed Maureen," Roger confirmed in a cracking voice.  He squeezed Mark's nerveless hand.  "I'm so sorry.  You have to believe me, I never meant for it to happen, but we had been drinking..."

Mark suddenly recoiled violently, as if Roger's touch had burned him.  He stared at him with horrible eyes, brimming with every destroyed, destructive kind of emotion.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked in a small, flat voice, as though it were coming across a far distance.

Roger closed his eyes in misery. "Because I thought you deserved to know." 

"Deserved it?" Mark said, his voice suddenly back, the force of his emotion propelling him through the stunned wall he had been momentarily caught behind. "You thought this was what I _deserved_?"

"God, Mark, no!  That's not what I--" 

"Fuck you Roger.  I deserve a goddamn friend, I deserve someone who loves me!" 

"Mark," Roger whispered with a true depth of sincerity, not knowing what else he could do. "I'm _sorry_."

Mark seemed to subside slightly at that, and he stared at Roger with trembling eyes.

"Why couldn't you let me be happy with her?" he asked.  His tone wasn't accusatory, just heartbroken.

Roger's eyes widened. "What?"

"This was the one thing I had Roger.  Why the hell does it always have to be about you?  Why couldn't you let her love me?"

And it was then that Roger realized what exactly it was that he had done to the best friend he had ever had.  Without hearing it in Mark's own words, the act lacked its true significance.  But now he knew just how awful of a thing it had been.  Mark thought no one loved him, because of him.  The bitter irony of it was nearly overwhelming.  Roger would do anything to take it back, but it was too late now.  _Maureen was right_, he thought incredulously, wondering how she had known.  There was only one thing he could think of that would partially redeem this situation, and it scared him beyond all measure.  As he took in Mark's distressed, shaking form, however, he knew that he had no choice.  Mark was the only thing in the world that mattered, and he'd do anything to try to alleviate the misery that was radiating off of the young filmmaker.

"She does love you Mark," he said slowly, deliberately. "Of course she loves you.  It was all my fault." 

"What are you talking about?" Mark whispered.  He was resting his elbows on the counter, his face buried in his hands. 

"It was me," Roger continued, clenching his fingers. "She didn't want any part of it, but I-I was drunk.  I wanted her - Mark, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it - but I pulled her toward me and wouldn't let go..."

Roger laid his hand on Mark's bent shoulder, but his friend pulled away instantly, hitting his hand away.  His face was contorted with rage and betrayal.

"No," he said. "You're _lying_ Roger.  I can tell.  Don't lie to me."

"It's true Mark," he said, tears welling in his eyes without his control. "It's true..." 

"It's not!" Mark flung himself away from the kitchen counter.  He held his head between his hands, as though he were trying to physically calm the tumbling of his thoughts. "It's not..."

"Mark," Roger whispered, agonized. "You have to know, I... I never meant to hurt you..." 

"Oh, _fuck_ you Roger.  You always hurt me, and this time you knew exactly what you were doing.  Did you just want to prove to me that she doesn't love me, that no one does, or were you afraid that maybe she actually _does _care?"

Something in Roger snapped, and the bitter words escaped his mouth before he could check them. 

"She doesn't love you Mark!  Christ, she never has, and she never could!"

The anger and truth of Roger's outburst shattered the intense hurt and anger flying through the air past their heads, leaving the room dead silent in its wake.  The words lay on the ground between the two of them, clear and exposed, dividing them.  Roger looked across it to Mark's face, stunned with misery, and realized that they might never be able to cross that divide again.  He had made it too deep and wide.  The musician's sick terror eclipsed all the other emotions raging inside of him as some part of his mind whispered revengefully to him to remember this moment.  Remember the moment when he truly lost Mark.

_She doesn't love you Mark, and she never will, because she can't see how special you are.  But that doesn't mean that no one does._

"You're right," Mark finally said softly after many silent moments, his eyes looking inward.  He choked back a wretched sob.  "She doesn't, does she?  Why do I always..."

..._love people who will never love me back?_

Roger made a slight movement toward him, to reach out and apologize and maybe confess, but Mark held up a hand to stay him and turned away.  He walked quickly toward his bedroom but stopped short in the doorway, caught off guard by the evidence of Maureen's hasty departure apparent everywhere.  She was gone.  The closet was open and noticeably emptier, several of her hangers dropped on the ground.  The things that normally inhabited the bedside table - a tube of lipstick and her earrings and her address book - had been swept away, presumably into a bag.  He wasn't prepared for this irrefutable proof of what had happened.  The room had a feeling of desolation, as if no one had ever lived there at all.  She had given up, and she was gone. 

Mark felt rather than heard Roger come up behind him.  His friend's hands slowly touched his shoulders, hesitantly, certain of rough rejection.  But Mark didn't have the strength to move or recoil, or the willpower to walk away.  Roger slowly let his forehead rest at the base of Mark's neck, and there was nothing Mark could do but wince.  He willed himself to leave but he knew that he never would, and he hated himself for it.  He leaned back slightly, letting his back rest against Roger's chest, feeling the musician's quick heartbeat.

"I'm sorry Mark," Roger whispered brokenly, his breath warm against Mark's neck. "I'm so, so sorry..." 

"I know you are," Mark managed around the knot in his throat.  And he meant it.  He knew that Roger would never do anything - even something like this - with the intention of hurting him.  Roger squeezed his shoulders with his next words. 

"It's just that.. ever since April..." 

Mark tensed. "Don't." 

"Mark, please, I need you to know--" 

"Don't talk about her," Mark said, finding that in anger he had the strength to pull away. "You have no right to bring her into this; she has _nothing_ to do with this."

"But she does!" Roger countered, following his friend back into the front room, watching as he paced back and forth in front of the couch.  He sighed.  "Did you think that I didn't see it too?  I knew all of those nights when she left our bed that she went to sleep with you.  And Mark, sometimes it drove me out of my mind--"

Mark abruptly stopped pacing and turned to look at Roger with wide, outraged eyes.  Roger bit back the rest of his sentence, unable to speak with Mark's eyes staring so coldly into his.

"What exactly are you saying?" Mark asked quietly, complete incomprehension written across his features. "What -- you think I was cheating with April?"

Roger started toward his friend but stopped at his furious, stony expression. "God, no," he choked. "I-I didn't say that--" 

"But that's what you meant, isn't it?  Christ Roger, what the fuck is wrong with you?  Not everyone betrays their best friend with his girlfriend."

Mark suddenly couldn't take it anymore.  He couldn't bear to be in the room with him and his treacherous eyes and arms any longer.  

"I've got to go," he mumbled, and headed for the door. 

"No, wait..." 

Roger panicked and grabbed Mark's hands, pulling him close, determined to let nothing go unsaid this time. 

"Mark, _listen_..." 

But Mark was deaf to his words and shook him off furiously, tears finally blurring his vision. 

"I'm going," he said.  Shaking but deliberate, he opened the door and stepped through it, quietly closing it on his friend.  He made it down two flights of stairs before he sank onto the cement steps, squeezing his eyes shut as the stinging, bitter tears came. 

Roger stared at the closed door for a long moment, stunned into silence, before dropping into a chair and burying his face in his hands. 


	6. Chapter 6

Haha, sorry.  I guess my author's note was a little misleading.  No! That was not the end.  What a horrible, abrupt ending that would be.  No, there are two chapters after this one.  By the way, Liss and Christine, you guys are my heroes. :)  

Reviews are adored and appreciated!  

Still not mine.

VI.

"Hi Melissa," Mark said curtly as the door opened to reveal Maureen's best friend. She looked at him with surprise in her big hazel eyes as he pushed past her into her apartment. "Is Maureen here?"

Whatever destroyed kind of sorrow he had felt when he left Roger had quickly hardened and calcified into anger.  He was in no mood for Maureen's games.  He walked certainly toward the closed door of Melissa's guest bedroom, muttering his apologies to the girl for his intrusion.  He opened the door to find Maureen standing behind it, showing on her face some small surprise at his boldness.

Mark did not move toward her.  He kept his hand gripped almost painfully around the doorknob, leaving the considerable distance between them intact.  He had no desire to be close to her at that moment.  She was also still, staring at him with sad eyes full of inevitably, set in her clean, strangely colorless face.  Their charged gaze became an almost physical link, pulsing with emotion, until he looked away.  It didn't seem quite fair; somehow she had become even more beautiful now that she had ripped his heart open without compunction.   

From somewhere behind them, Melissa quickly made her excuses and moved to leave.  She closed the door gingerly behind her, as though she feared that any sound would start them screaming.  Neither Mark nor Maureen so much as glanced in her direction, barely hearing her words.

Mark pushed his glasses up so that he could rub his eyes, an unconscious fretful gesture.

"Why did you do it Maureen?" he finally asked, his voice making the shape of pain something tangible.

Maureen moved past him into the living room.  She gave no outward indication of it, but she was stung by the lost look in his eyes, the rawness of his voice.

_Roger, you idiot_, she thought wearily. _I warned you, why didn't you believe me?_

"I don't know why," she murmured, feeling strangely defensive. She had been wronged as much as he had, after all, if he only realized it.  But no, Mark didn't hurt people intentionally like she did, because she was such a cruel, heartless bitch.  Maybe it was true, maybe she was heartless.  But it was Roger who had hurt Mark and not her.  She didn't have that power over Mark's heart. 

"What do you mean you don't know why?" he asked, the shards of his bitterness tearing at his throat as he spoke.

She looked up at him tiredly.  She had already played this conversation out in her head a million times, and the idea of having to go through it again exhausted her.

"What is it you want me to say Mark?" she asked, spreading her hands.

"I want you to say _something_ for Christ's sake!" he replied, looking angry and bewildered.  "I don't know.  That you're sorry or that it didn't mean anything or... damnit, I don't know."

"See, it's not easy to know what to say, is it?"

"Oh, fuck you Maureen!" Mark exploded, goaded past his endurance by her biting casualty. "You kissed by roommate, my best friend! Don't act like I don't have the right to be upset about this."

She stood, the resentment and hurt beginning to escape from beneath the frayed edges of her callousness. "But Mark, how upset about this _are_ you, honestly?"

"What the hell do you mean by that?"

His insistence on continuing to deny what they both knew was there was like salt in her fresh wounds.  She lashed out at him in retaliation, calmly and viciously.

"Surely you've always realized that something like this would happen!  Christ, Roger and I both knew _the whole time_.  We could never look at each other without knowing that some night we'd end up just the way we were, with him pressing me up against the wall..."

Mark flinched violently, and she stopped.

He recoiled emotionally, balling up like a child to protect himself from the noxious barb she had so skillfully shot. "Maureen..." he murmured in pain.  

She watched him cringe, seeming to shrink before her eyes, and felt a suddenly sharp pang of remorse.  Poor, _stupid_ Mark. He didn't choose to fall in love with his best friend, after all, and if anything, he must suffer far more from it than she ever had.  She sighed, vexed that she couldn't commit to an emotion.  She looked up at him, into his big, clear eyes.  He was so beautiful in his shyness and vulnerability.  She had always wanted to be the one who drew him out, the person who brought all of his passion to the surface.  She had wanted so _badly_ to be in love with him.  She still did, but she knew the reality of the situation too well to think that it could ever happen.

"I didn't mean to hurt you Mark," she said. He looked up at her from where he had sunk into a chair, his scathing skepticism apparent, and she conceded the point.

"Alright, maybe I did," she amended. "But I'm being honest now, really. I don't believe you're actually upset, so it's difficult for me to feel like I should be sorry.  I know what's going on Mark, I'm not fucking stupid, and I think you owe me an apology as much as I owe you one."

When she could no longer control the wobble in her voice, she fell silent. She slowly sunk to her knees in front of the chair he was curled into, needing to be close to him and have him understand what he had been doing to her, however unintentionally. 

There were tears trembling in her eyes when he looked up from the floor to meet her gaze. Her cold exterior had crumbled, leaving the strangely insecure girl that Maureen thought she had suppressed years ago, reaching out for him in a way she rarely had before.

"Did you think that I wouldn't see it?" she continued softly. "I'm not a consolation prize Mark. I need someone to love me just the same as anyone else, though I know I don't always show it.  I wanted that someone to be you, but you've been lying to me Mark, and that makes me feel stupid and used.  When were you planning to tell me that you couldn't love me?"

"I love you Maureen," he said as they both began to cry. He reached out and cupped her face in his shaking hands, laying his forehead against hers. "I _do_ love you."

Her lips met his in a desperate, clingy kiss.  His hands wandered into her hair and over the contours of her neck and face, trying almost frantically to memorize it all before it was ripped away from him. She was crying, and she finally pulled away enough to wipe the tears from her eyes.

"Maureen," he murmured, his fingers resting unsurely on her shoulders. "I love you..."

More than anything in the world he wanted to hear her say that she loved him too.  He wanted to know that he hadn't been completely naive and gullible about this whole thing, that he hadn't completely imagined that she cared something for him.  She might have wanted him to fall in love with her, but that didn't mean she had ever had any intention of loving him back.  Maureen cheerfully collected men's hearts.  He didn't want to find out that he was truly as pathetic and deluded as he felt like he was.  He wanted to know that someone like her could love him too, that anyone could, that Roger was wrong. 

But in another way, he was deeply afraid that she would say that she loved him too.  Was her love so flimsy that it couldn't keep her from cheating on him, hadn't even made her pause before doing it?  Maybe beggars couldn't be choosers, but he didn't want it like that.  Perhaps he was just proving his naïveté all over again, thinking that the real thing would be different somehow, better.  Was it unrealistic to hope that he could be with someone who would want and need him with the same fierce intensity with which Mark wanted them?

Maybe the answer was yes.  Maybe that never actually happened outside of films, for anyone.

"Don't say you love me Mark," Maureen said tersely, clamping down on her tears as she stood and backed away from him. "You don't mean it, not really."

The intoxicating, beguiling effect of her nearness and affection fell away with those words, and Mark was suddenly returned to the cold, hard present. He was angrier than he had been before for having forgotten, for letting himself be dazzled by her again. 

"You were never a consolation prize to me," he said with an honest but clipped voice, retreating back into himself. "But I don't even need to ask you what I was to you, because there was never really any question of that." He sighed. "There have been others, haven't there Maureen?"

She couldn't look at him. "Yes."

"But why Roger? Why _him_?"

"What do you want me to say Mark?" she asked, turning to face him. "Reasons aren't going to make it any easier for you.  Can you really not imagine why I would choose Roger?  Surely you've noticed, the way he moves like pure sex, the way those hands stroke over his guitar strings.  You wouldn't imagine how those hands feel against your skin, or I don't know, maybe you would..."

Mark winced and stood.  She walked aimlessly from the bookshelf to the window, unable to keep still as always. 

"Why are you so determined to hurt me tonight Maureen?" he asked, rubbing his temple.

"Why are you so fucking determined to keep lying to me?"

"What are you talking about!"

She spun back on him, her eyes red from crying, her hurt and frustration screaming for an outlet. "Christ Mark! Just admit that I'm not the one you're mad at.  We both know it's true!"

He looked up at her with fear and bewilderment crumpling his wide blue gaze.  "Maureen, what..."

She laughed, miserable. "You're not angry that I kissed someone else," she said slowly and deliberately. "You're angry that _he_ kissed someone else."

And it was said. The spinning world suddenly became still for her, and she could breath.  But Mark rocked forward as though her words had made a vacuum of the room.

"What?" he whispered into the airless space. The room had closed off, and all he could see were her eyes as she looked at him wearily.

"Mark, I know."


	7. Chapter 7

One more to go after this.  Thanks for the reviews, I appreciate it!

Nope, not mine.

VII.

_"Mark, I know."_

Mark walked rapidly despite the fact the fact that he had no destination in mind to hurry toward.  All of his normal haunts had been closed for hours, and he wasn't yet prepared to go back to the loft where he would have to face his friend and his empty room.  He just wanted to put as much space as possible between himself, Maureen, and the conversation they had just had as quickly as possible.  Every time his feet hit the frozen sidewalk and the distance between what he didn't want to remember increased, he expected some sense of relief to begin creeping up on him, but he was disappointed with each step.  The memories remained mockingly clear.  Her words were a litany in his unwilling ears, effectively warding off any numbness that the cold or his own mind might have produced.  He heard those words so many times, in rhythm with the sound of his shoes hitting the pavement, that he wasn't even sure whose voice they were said in anymore.

_"Mark, I know."_

_Mark froze. _

_"What?" he whispered.  He was standing with his back to her.  He had been walking toward his bedroom to escape her deep and knowing eyes when she had spoken up softly.  He could feel those felty brown eyes on him now, not hard but evaluating, and he felt terror rip through him, roaring through his veins and ears.  He tried to relax, to breathe deeply, but he knew it was no use.  He couldn't fool her.  _

_"I know," she repeated gently. "Mark... please look at me."_

_He did, turning slightly, and somehow she was more beautiful than she ever had been before. _

_"I've known for a long time," she said with a slight, forced smile, as though that made it easier.  She looked back down at the book lying open in her lap which she had been reading when Roger left just minutes ago.  "I just..." _

_Her voice trailed off, and she bit her lip, looking up hesitantly into his terrified eyes.  _

_"I just need you to talk to me Mark," she finally said. "I can't stand this feeling of secretiveness with you, like I can't say anything for fear that it might be wrong.  I don't like this being between us."_

_Every muscle in his body cried out in protest against his immobility, his inability to run away from her.  But he felt as if his feet had been nailed to the floor, and the most resistance he could manage was to look away from her._

_"April, I don't know what..." he began to protest weakly.  _

_"Oh Mark!" she said, more in grief than in anger, though her tone was less gentle than before. "Please, don't lie to me.  I've seen the way you look at him.  I've seen the way you are with him, and don't tell me it's just because he's your best friend, because I know it's more than that."_

_Unable to bring himself to lie to her when she was being so honest, he said nothing, just stared down at his feet.  He was trying desperately to think of something to say, but all he could do was focus on all of the times when he had stared at Roger when his back was turned or had gone out of his way to touch him and wish that he had been more careful._

_"I love you as much as I love him, Mark," April continued, looking as though she were going to stand but deciding against it. "I know we've always been close, but..." she hesitated, "but sometimes you've got to wish that I would just get the hell out of your lives, don't you?  I can't stand the idea of being the reason that you're unhappy, I just... I need him too."_

_Mark's eyes snapped up to hers, and for a long moment he could only stare at her, feeling numb and crushed and saved all at the same time._

_"April..." he finally murmured, giving in to it for the first time, and she immediately stood, stepping forward to wrap her arms around him.  He buried his face into her neck, nearly sobbing with remorse, relief, and love as her hands ran over his back soothingly._

_"Oh God, April..." he choked into her hair, feeling his throat constrict. "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry..."_

_"Shh," she said.  "You have nothing to be sorry about."_

_"I do," he insisted, pulling back from her slightly, feeling an almost overwhelming paradox of emotion surge through him as he looked into her big, clear eyes.  "I have so much to be sorry about.  I swear, I never meant for this to happen, and I never resented you.  Ever.  I know that... the way he looks at you, he could never...  He loves you so much, and so do I.  I can't imagine my life - **our** lives - without you.  We'd be a total mess.  God, I'm so sorry."_

_"So it is true?" she asked softly when he found himself unable to articulate the dull, constant ache in his chest anymore. "You do love him?"_

_He smiled slightly. "I thought you said you knew."_

_The corners of her lips turned up. "Just making sure."_

_"Yeah, something like that."_

_The tears that had been glistening in her eyes during this entire exchange finally fell, rolling slowly down her cheeks.  "Oh Mark," she said. "I'm so sorry."_

_"No," he said, reaching up to tenderly wipe her tears away, no longer able to stop his own at the sight of hers.  "No, I'm sorry."_

_His arms came back around her, and she curled up against him.  He held her more tightly than he had ever held anyone in his life, embracing her with his heart and his soul as much as with his arms, something he couldn't remember having been able to do before.  They stayed like that, talking and crying, for a long time, until the only thing left for them to do was laugh._

Mark continued to walk aimlessly, not really aware of anything that was going on around him, the memories of the dead days with her on a loop in his head.  Those worn tracks in his mind, though painful, were more comfortable than the fresh images of Maureen screaming, crying that he should just admit that he was in love with Roger and always had been.

But Maureen didn't understand. She didn't know that it wasn't love in the normal sense of the word. It was just Roger. He realized that this sounded like he was being deliberately vague and esoteric, but it was the only way he knew how to articulate the truth that he understood but couldn't word.  It was _Roger_.  It was knowing that it had to be Roger, because it was. Only April had understood that, because it had been the same way for her.

After that moment when they had cried in each other's arms everything was different.  It defied all logic that April would become his comfort and support, but she was.  She was his angel.  No matter how busy she was she would always abandon her books or her papers to talk to him on those occasional dark days when the sadness and rejection pulsing off of him was nearly palpable.  Sometimes when Roger left for rehearsal, they would giggle together about how good he looked in his tight shirt and ripped jeans.  He would find little notes from her hidden all throughout his things - beneath his pillow, tucked into a sweater, stuck in the pages of his favorite book - whenever she had to go out of town to visit her father.  He continued to find those after she died, and each one was like a white-hot poker through his chest, crippling him for days.  She often slipped into his bed at night to touch him and talk to him, knowing that there were days when he felt like no one had ever touched him at all.  She tried to smooth away his loneliness with her own unflinching love, and she was the only one he could talk to. 

For a long time he wondered how much of it she did out of guilt.  Mark knew she loved him, but how much of her kindness was to help repair the fact that Roger loved her the way he would never love him?  After a while, however, it stopped mattering to him.  They worked so well as a group, a unit, that he wouldn't have changed it for the world.  He was happy; they all were.  But that damned note was always in his head now: _take care of each other._  He analyzed those words ceaselessly.  When he read them for the first time and then looked up into Roger destroyed eyes, he could have sworn that he actually felt his heart collapse in his chest.  It felt wrong to touch the musician, to look at him, because he knew that every moment with Roger had been bought with her blood, a transaction he never would have chosen.  He could still see that blood when he closed his eyes, staining the floor of the second bathroom they never used anymore, despite the fact that it had been scrubbed away months ago.  Roger might silently blame himself, but Mark knew that this was a chance that she had given him, because she didn't think she had one anymore.  It was her last present, her last hidden little note, and the last time she tried to make him happy.  That knowledge, which he couldn't even share with anyone, nearly killed him. 

He felt more deeply alone without her than he ever had before in his life.  He had had a glimpse at a soul mate, and every relationship paled now in comparison.  He didn't feel it when Maureen touched him, didn't hear her words, in the same way that he had felt and heard April.  He and Roger together might have been able to repair the loss they had both been dealt, but Roger was drowning.  He was just a shell of the man he used to be, a new person who drank and partied and made all sorts of noise to try to drown out those words scribble on the bathroom mirror.  Mark was losing him.  Every day that Roger came home fucked up or refused to take his medication, he was a little closer to joining her, and despite all of his desperate efforts, Mark couldn't bring the musician back from that precipice.  It was April who Roger needed.  Mark just wasn't enough, and he had never felt more helpless in all of his life.

It wasn't love exactly.  It was something stronger but less defined.  April had felt it too, and for a short time it had bound them all together.  They were each the most important person to the other two, and together they had made a kind of triangle where they were all happy and safe and protected from every angle.  But she had been the apex, and now that she was gone the whole structure was crumbling.  

And it wasn't enough to just miss her.  He needed her; they both needed her.  She knew that, but she had left anyway.  And Mark was angry about it.  He was angry that he would never have the answers he so badly needed to hear.  He was angry that Roger was dying and that she had valued her own life so little.  He had lost the two people he loved most in the world, and that made him angry with her and with him and with God and with everyone who had someone to hold at night.  He didn't know if he could ever fully recover from it.

Mark was jerked from his thoughts by the sound of a car horn up the block. It was late and, Mark suddenly realized, heart-numbingly cold. The effects of his exhaustion were beginning to creep up on him, pulling at his eyelids and making each step heavier than the last.  Reluctantly accepting that he had nowhere else to go, Mark turned and began walking in the direction of the loft. 


	8. Chapter 8

Yep, finished.  Is anyone else amazed?  I am.  Thanks so much to everyone who read and reviewed.  I appreciate it so much, and I'd appreciate reviews for this last chapter more than anything.  I feel like I should say more but I have no words left, they've all been sucked into this story.  But thanks, again.

They're not mine.

VIII.

Roger stood in the doorway of Mark's bedroom, leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest.  This had become a familiar position for him over the past few months, one that he had spent countless hours in.  He would stand there late at night, silent and barely breathing, watching Mark.  Mark alone, sometimes with his arms clasped sleepily around a pillow, hungry for someone to hold onto.  Mark with her - with April - her head lying trustingly on his shoulder.  Mark and Maureen, who ended up most nights with their backs to each other.  But always Mark.  Except for tonight.  Tonight he stared at the empty, twisted sheets where his friend should have been if Roger hadn't acted with the raging selfishness and single-mindedness that he was always so quick to criticize in others.

Because Maureen was right.  The song was about Mark.

His song had probably been about Mark for far longer than he realized.  It had been so different when April was still there.  The filmmaker had been important and loved and beautiful, but he had been that to both of them.  It was natural and easy; there weren't these dark questions and concerns pulling at them, making them feel guilty and confused.  She had smoothed it all.  On the nights when Roger woke up to find a cold, empty spot in the bed beside him, he knew she was with Mark.  Sometimes he would pull himself drowsily out of bed, compelled by some strange need to see them, and cross the cold living room floor on quiet feet to lean in the doorway, as he did now.  He would stare at them, feeling tumultuous emotions rising inside of him but not feeling the need to sort through them.  He felt the most powerful kind of love he had ever known warming him down to his freezing bare feet; did it really matter what kind it was or who he felt it for more?  The answers were never clear anyway.  They grew and shifted from day to day, moment to moment.  Sometimes he was painfully jealous that Mark was the one who was getting to hold April, rest his head against her hair and feel her soft, clingy hands resting against his chest.  Other times he was jealous that April was the one getting to hold Mark, to fully feel his caring touch, which was normally so hesitant.  Mostly he was just struck by how beautiful they were, the two halves of his own soul.

But now she was gone, and everything had all become so leaden and complicated.  He couldn't sort out his thoughts, because all he could see was her blood whirling pooling down the bathtub drain, and the only sounds he could isolate were her words ripped across a post-it, echoing through his jumbled brain.  Mark was there for him, just like always.  Roger knew that if he couldn't rely on Mark he would be better off taking a razor to his wrists too, but Mark never faltered in his support and caring, even though Roger could tell that he cried himself to sleep whenever he actually managed to sleep.  Something fundamental, however, had changed between them.  They were struggling so much with death and disease and grief that they had lost the balance in their relationship somewhere in the mix.  Vertigo had set in, and they couldn't go back to being what they were before. 

And he was dying.  Jesus, he was as good as dead.

And it wasn't enough to just know it.  He saw it reflected back at him in Mark's clear eyes, struggling up to the surface, every time their gazes met.  He could feel it in the weight of Mark's glance when he was too drunk or fucked up to see straight.  He saw his own death clearly, not like hers, not quick and controlled.  It would be brutally slow and painful, taking him piece by piece.  Mark would have to watch him be dismantled by this disease, and Roger would have to look into Mark's eyes as it was happening and see all of their deaths mirrored in his wavering blue gaze. 

The only times when he really felt alive anymore were when he came home to find Mark waiting for him.  Then he could close his eyes, lie on the couch and wait for Mark to come sit beside him.  He would swallow the pills and the glass of water that the filmmaker inevitably handed him and then just lie there, concentrating on the stubborn beat of his heart and rhythm of his breathing until Mark's fingers gently pushed his hair off of his sweaty forehead, telling him that he should get to bed.  Roger wondered sometimes at his cruelty, because he could feel the desperation in his friend's fingers and voice, but it never stopped him.  Mark was terrified of his addictions, and he suffered because of them.  Roger knew it too, but he couldn't stop the downward spiral.  Maybe he wanted to die on his own terms, or maybe he just needed Mark to be terrified. 

With Maureen, however, Roger had reached new levels of brutality toward his best friend that he didn't even know he had within him. 

He wasn't sure why he had let it happen.  True, he was still a man and there was still blood pumping through his veins.  He couldn't deny that he found Maureen attractive, but the only other redeeming factor he had ever been able to see in her was the way she had made Mark smile as he tripped haplessly into love with her.  Perhaps he was predisposed to dislike anyone Mark became involved with, but Roger could tell from every coquettish tilt of her head and every word from her pert mouth that Maureen would hurt him, and he hated her for that.  He had never thought, however, that he would be the other half of the equation that betrayed his filmmaker, and he hated himself for it more than he ever could her.  Because he knew.  Roger _knew_ how special Mark was, but he had let it happen anyway. 

It wasn't love.  Not in the conventional sense of the word.  It was something bigger and more encompassing and harder to pinpoint because of it.   The poet inside of him chafed at his inability to put into words the force that he was so vividly aware of at every moment.  It was that feeling that made him stand here and watch Mark sleep for hours, made him lay alone in his own bed crazy for Mark to be curled up beside him.  It might just have happened too, as surely and naturally as everything else had happened for them, if death and drugs and pouty performance artists had intruded on them, because on the deepest level Roger didn't need anything more from Mark.  They were already as close in mind and soul as any two people could ever be, but Roger craved for them to reach that level emotionally too, in spite of the fact that neither of them had a particularly good track record in that area.  Roger wanted to be able to take Mark's hands in his own when they were shaking with frustration or excitement and pull him close, run his hands through his tangled hair and cover his kind lips with sweet, feverish kisses.  And more than anything, Roger wanted to wrap his arms around Mark as they slept, spend every night with the filmmaker's warm, slight body pressed close against his.  He knew that was the kind of trust and intimacy that Mark wished for most, that he always felt the loneliest at night and that being held by someone even when they were unconscious of it made him feel more loved than anything else could.  Roger would do that given half the chance, because even asleep every strand of him wanted to be as close to Mark as possible.  It was the only thing that could make him feel tangible and whole again, remind him that he was still alive and put his own demon nightmares to rest, and that kind of love was the only thing he had to offer his friend who had given him so much.  They could find in each other what they had lost with April, he was sure of it, but he feared that he had permanently marred their relationship with his own foolishness.  

Roger moved forward slowly and sat at the foot of Mark's bed.  He was exhausted with guilt and heartache, and he bent beneath the weight of it, covering his wincing eyes with his hands.  His fingers were itching with depressing poetry, but this wasn't something he wanted to preserve or even distance himself from with song lyrics.  He needed to live it himself, fully conscious.  Mark had always accused him of being a masochist.  

_"I'm a musician, what do you expect?"_

Roger smiled vaguely at the memory.  

_"Besides, what about you?  I'm sure there are volumes that can be said about the neurosis of someone who takes all of the pictures so that he never has to appear in any of them."_

_"Hey, you know I have body image issues."_

_"And rightly so.  When was the last time you ate something?"_

_"Shut up!"   _

Roger started when he heard the front door open.  He took his hands away from his face.  Mark?  He stood quickly, visualizing with sudden fear and clarity his friend's reaction to finding him skulking in his bedroom, assuming that it was Mark at all.  He crept to the doorway, unsure of what to expect.  It was indeed Mark; he was standing beside the front door, hanging up his coat, his back to Roger.  Roger felt that same something emotion course through him at the sight of his roommate - he hadn't expect him to come back - and for a moment he was dizzyingly hopeful.

"Mark..." he breathed, almost involuntarily, stepping out of his bedroom and into the living room, pulled toward his friend.

_I can feel your eyes upon my face, all the way over here._

Mark turned to face him, his startlingly blue eyes tired and dull.  His gaze only met Roger's for an instant before turning hastily away.  It was then that Roger realized with a sinking heart that Mark had only come home because he had nowhere else to go.  

"Look, can we just not talk right now?" the filmmaker asked quietly.

Roger nodded with some difficulty.  If Mark had asked him to jump out of the window at that moment, he would have obliged and gladly.

_Although I'm staring into space,you know something's wrong with me, my dear._

Mark plopped down onto the couch, his entire being suggesting weariness.  He leaned his head back against a cushion, staring up at the peeling paint on the ceiling, his face expressionless.  Roger shifted slightly, uncertain as to what to do.  He couldn't tell if his friend was still angry or merely exhausted, and he didn't know how to approach him or even if he should at all.  He felt like he should apologize, prostrate himself at Mark's feet, whatever was necessary, but Mark had already forestalled any kind of conversation.  Finally, seeing no other alternative and thinking to spare Mark his presence, Roger headed toward the door of his bedroom, intending to stare at his own ceiling for a few hours.

"Wait," he heard the filmmaker say.  He turned to face Mark, the surprise and trepidation that he felt showing through his features.

_Lay low for now, all right._

Mark was holding a hand out toward him, his impassive face suddenly pleading.  

"Don't go," he said simply.  

_Lay low my sweetheart, now, tonight._

Deeply shocked and confused, Roger complied, moving to sit cautiously beside his friend as Mark's hand dropped to his side.  It was rare for Roger to feel as though he had no idea what was going on in Mark's head, but now was one of those times.  They sat next to each other silently for many moments until Mark, without looking at Roger who was sitting rigid with uncertainty, turned his head until it rested against the musician's chest.  He sighed heavily as he did so, letting all of his anger escape on a breath, and that simple exhalation spoke more than any words ever could.  His arms snaked their way around Roger's waist, and he buried himself into the warmth of Roger's body and the detergent smell of his clothes, accepting that it did no good to fixate on hurtful things that couldn't be changed, because nothing outside of that moment really mattered anyway.

Roger's breath hitched as his arms came immediately around Mark, knowing and scarcely being able to believe that he had been forgiven.  Shamed by his friend's generosity, he held the filmmaker so close that he vaguely feared he might be hurting him with the physical manifestation of his relief, love and gratitude.  Words began to spill from his mouth, babbled apologies and thanks mumbled against his friend's hair and cheek, but Mark hushed him.  The filmmaker's breathing felt labored and shaky under Roger's hands, as though he was struggling to contain the emotion that Roger could feel singing through his skin.  He ran his hands up and down Mark's back slowly, feeling the warmth of the filmmaker invade his veins, replacing the sting of the disease in his bloodstream that he had been constantly aware of since she died.  He closed his eyes, his turbulent emotions gradually calmed by the familiarity of his friend until he didn't think of anything outside of the weight of Mark against him, the rhythm of his own breathing, and the peace that had been restored between them. 

Many minutes passed like this before Mark disentangled himself slowly and stood.  He leaned forward to hit the play button on the VCR, one of the few luxuries they had left from the days when Roger's first band had been wildly successful, before collapsing back beside Roger.  Suddenly everything was normal again.  In that moment there was no Maureen, no death or betrayal or uncertainty.  Just the art house movie that they had watched together a million times before, just like this, Mark's head resting on a pillow in Roger's lap.  When April had become a fixture of their lives, she had quickly joined the ritual.  She would sit on the floor, resting her back against the couch and pulling her knees up to her chest.  She would flip quietly through textbooks and journals, preparing for class, as the boys watched the arty, esoteric films that completely escaped her analytical mind.  Occasionally she would glance up to offer a comment, eager to participate in and try to understand their artistic, intuitive world, which was entirely outside of her sphere.  Mark and Roger would inevitably end up trying to conceal their laughter at her decided left-brainness, and she would good-naturedly go back to her sensible world of science, glad to forsake their symbolism and imagery for her statistics and theories.  Roger's fingers would stray into her heavy hair, and she'd look up from her articles to smile at him, that smile that made him forget everything but her, before going back to her work.  Only now it was Mark's tangled hair that he ran his shaking fingers over lightly, and Mark's fingers that crept up to take a hold of his, and he honestly didn't know which he would choose were he forced to make the decision.   

"Are you thinking about April?" Mark asked suddenly, his voice softly breaking the silence between them, his eyes still fixed on the television screen.

Roger shifted his gaze to the filmmaker's face, vaguely wondering why no one else saw just how beautiful he was.

"Sort of," he said. "I was actually thinking more about you."

"So was I.  I mean, I was thinking about her but more about you too."  He paused.  "You know, I wasn't..."

"I know," Roger said, squeezing his friend's fingers.

"I'm sorry I accused you of saying that we were.  I know that's not what you meant, I just wasn't thinking straight."

Roger shook his head. "Don't apologize to me."

"Do you think about her a lot?" Mark asked, turning so that he was looking straight up into Roger's eyes.

"Yeah," Roger sighed. "More or less constantly.  You?"

"More or less."

"Mark," he said, his eyes roaming over his friend's open face before settling back into his blue gaze. "I'm so sorry... that I've been such a mess.  I shouldn't be such a burden to you, and you shouldn't have had to deal with this alone."

"It's okay, I understand," Mark replied.  He sighed heavily.  "But.. you do scare me _so much_ sometimes Roger.  I can't..."

"I know," Roger said sadly. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I do it sometimes.  But I'll try to stop, I swear.  I just... well, I might need a little more of your help."

Mark nodded, a brief smile on his face. "Sure."

Roger squeezed his fingers again, knowing that words couldn't articulate what he was feeling.  Mark smiled up at him for a moment more before turning his attention back to the movie.  A perfect, companionable stillness rested between them until Roger managed speak the words that had been loitering in the forefront of his mind all night.

_I don't know what's kept me silent somehow._

"What you said before Mark, about no one being able to love you..."__

"I know."

_It seems my heart wants to say something that my lips won't allow._

"It's not true."

"I know."

_So I lay low for now, for tonight._

They didn't speak again that night; they both knew it was unnecessary.  As the closing credits of the movie ran, Roger looked down drowsily at the exhausted filmmaker who had fallen asleep over an hour ago, his fingers still curled trustingly in Roger's own.  A little reluctantly, the musician rose from his seat on the couch, carefully laying his friend's head back down and tucking a spare blanket around his shoulders.  Roger knelt beside the couch for a long time just looking at his friend before leaning forward to touch his lips lightly and lingeringly against Mark's forehead.  He then turned to go to his own bed, thinking of the day when Mark might lie beside him.

 _I lay low my sweetheart now, tonight._

-the end.


End file.
